New Frontiers in Geography
In a story about parking in Boston and the utter lack of accountability to the supposed limit on commercial parking spaces, we find the following sentence:
Suffolk County, which encompasses most of Boston, received a D grade last year from the American Lung Association in its "State of the Air" report, which showed seven days of unhealthy ozone levels.
I have no idea what that is supposed to mean. Suffolk County comprises Boston, Chelsea, Revere, and Winthrop. So, if "encompasses most of Boston" means that bits of Boston are not included in the county, then the crack staff of the Globe is far off. And if it means that most of the Boston area is in Suffolk County, then it is further off.
The most charitable reading is that the story meant to explain that the City of Boston is the largest part of Suffolk County—but even that reading shows that the crack staff of the Globe is having a difficult time understanding what "encompass" actually means.
Worse for the readers, the story claims that commuting by car in Boston has tripled since 1985. That does not seem even remotely possible. Indeed, non-car commuting for Boston residents did not change at all from 1990 to 2000. (I sus;pect that the Globe is comparing statistics from 1985 for those living in the City of Boston and from a recent year for those working in the City of Boston.
There would be a good story in these numbers if the reporter asked the right sort of questions—why are there so few carpoolers in Boston? How do we increase public transit use? Is it really necessary to spend literally tens of billions of dollars to subsidize those who need to drive into a congested city when there are easy alternatives?
Labels: car culture, geography, Stupid reporting tricks
